Manasseh Azure Awuni, JoyNews investigative journalist
Have you all of a sudden found your voice and folder again? Were you in Ghana and Africa lately? I thought you were at large.
Let me painstakingly brief you of a few things happening in Ghana that deserved your vociferous input. Perhaps it may help revive your hitherto vibrant image you sunk in a wild non-existent militia group trained at the castle documentary.
Readers! You recall that Manasseh Azure Awuni (the Bongo Boy) is an ardent critique of Zoomlion Ghana Limited especially its owner Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong. He misses no chance to call Jospong and his associates all sort of names whether name is in the news for good or bad reasons.
Manasseh attributes every positive initiative and innovation undertaken by Zoomlion Ghana Limited to a negative score.
His actions and utterances depicts hatred for any person who says something positive about Zoomlion and Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong even though he denies that each time he gets the opportunity. He interestingly poses as one who hate the Jospong monopoly but not his person.
Since he has been absent for a while as a result of his self-initiated exile in South Africa, I would like to inform him that as usual the Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong has single handedly installed a 20 million USD ultra-modern integrated waste recycling and composting plant and converted a whole undesirable enclave at Old Fadama into the Accra Waste Recovery Park (AWARP). The plant which I witnessed the unveiling ceremony done in the capacity of the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
The plant processes metals, PET and general plastics, damaged lorry tires, e-waste, composting of all organic waste, textiles, etc into good material for human reuse and everybody and I mean everybody in Ghana and beyond are hailing the one man thousand Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong and his company Zoomlion Ghana Limited.
The company is even acting against all odds to replicate the facility in sixteen other regional capitals which will cost 320 million USD, and since the launching, all regional ministers, diplomats, senior journalists and opinion leaders, sanitation minister who was represented by her deputy and many more are visiting the facility and all are giving thumps up to the one man Jospong for the initiative and urging him to replicate it in the regions.
They each will create over 1000 direct and indirect jobs in the waste management value chain for Ghanaians.
My worry now is Manasseh’s deafening silence to also commend Zoomlion, JGC or the man Agyepong for this onerous adventure. When you criticize it is good, even when you hate or malign others it is also good but wise people criticize and put all the facts before the audience to make informed decision. Criticism must be constructive otherwise just criticizing for its sake and not parting the back of those you criticize even when they get it right smacks of hypocrisy and hatred. Our people say criticism is good when it is balanced because it helps the actors get their acts right the next time. In fact, the cowardice and hypocrisies are obviously expressing your wickedness? As a Frafra from Bongo, I believe you have the idea about the saying “asaala dagi wine” which means “human beings are not God”.
Your hatred and malice against Jospong is what makes him soar day in and day out. Keep hating but remember that hatred doesn’t win. You might also have knowledge of the saying that “putuulugudaana yire kamiti” in Frafra which means the wicked one will never succeed in his endeavours. Your wish has always been that Jospong and Zoomlion should sink, if it must be Jospong then it must be negative, your mind that is an impossibility.
This your “show me your friend” article for Manasseh’s folder is born out of hatred and malice, it is your usual evil exploits in reaction to Jospong’s good deeds. Fire burn you when you hear his name and I promise you will burn to ashes as bigger things are going to happen internationally in his name. Indeed, human beings are not God.
For the benefit of readers, I will recount the things that Manasseh said and did against the good things that came the way of Zoomlion and Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong (Jospong) for you readers to appreciate my pain as a true Ghanaian.
An example is when the President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his own wisdom visited one of the numerous sanitation projects of Jospong call the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP).
While addressing the workers of Zoomlion and ACARP, the president urged the Executive Chairman of the JGC to ignore the controversies surrounding his work if he wanted to succeed. Manasseh took the president to the cleaners with an article he titled “Akufo-Addo’s immoral dance with Jospong” and condemned both heavily as though he (Manasseh) decides where the president should go and what he should say. He brutally used unthinkable words to describe the president’s actions and handlers for allowing him to visit anything Jospong which speaks clearly to his Machiavellian tactics.
When Imani Africa organized a sanitation forum and made Manasseh, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong and Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda panelists on the discussing table in 2018, Manasseh said he hated Jospong’s monopoly but was rightly floured by Jospong over his allegation of corruption on him. Manasseh still even went home and reported negatively against the Jospong companies. It appears the young man suffers permanent amnesia the least I can assume.
When Jospong launched the first batch of 500 new waste trucks in Accra in 2018, Manasseh found his wisdom to write against it describing the move as lies as the trucks were not up to the exact of 500 even though the Executive Chairman of Zoomlion Dr. Agyepong honestly made it clear in his speech that those were the first batch of trucks cleared and registered.
When Ex-President John Jerry Rawlings attended Zoomlion’s Annual Thanksgiving Service as a guest speaker in December 2018 and commended Zoomlion/JGC, Manasseh took to social media and suggested Jospong had bribed Mr. Rawlings too. If bribing people was that easy and cheap let’s, ask Manasseh why they have not been bribed by Jospong?
Indeed, it has already been alleged in the media circles that Manasseh had approached the businessman and NAM1 for pleasurable offers such as houses, cars and cash which he has denied but that was expected though. How long can we associate everybody who gets closer to Dr. Agyepong as corrupt Manasseh?
When Zoomlion unveiled mechanized street sweepers in February this year and received praises from government appointees such as the sanitation minister, local government minister, Greater Accra Regional Minister and the Accra Mayor that one too Manasseh was pained and he took to twitter and facebook to reiterate that the company signs dubious contracts.
The unveiling of the multi-purpose recycling plant which received thunderous applause from well-meaning Ghanaians and the diplomatic corps in Ghana last month and H.E. Nana Akufo Addo’s visit to the site where dredging activity is ongoing by Dredge Masters a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Ltd is what has aggravated Manasseh Azure Awuni’s wickedness against a fellow human being into this his recent article. Instead of him to commend the man for solving the several Ghanaian problems, Manasseh pays him back with bad mouth.
I am happy that social media users are discerning so they meet him each time with so much disapproval. They see the wickedness, the malice, the diabolic efforts perpetrated by Manasseh to tarnish the enviable image of Jospong and Zoomlion. They tell him he is wicked, a liar, he is satanic and doesn’t want others especially Jospong to progress.
But if indeed Jospong signs dubious contracts as Manasseh wants us to believe with the state, has he not lost the fight by misdirecting his energies to Jospong who represent his business interest in terms of finances on one hand and solving problems which were supposed to be solved by the state in the interest of the people?
Many will ask, what does Manasseh want from Jospong but I know he has a phobia against monopolies, monopolies of Ghanaian origin especially those for the Jospong family. otherwise he must have a problem with multimedia group’s monopoly too.
Manasseh is one of the people who believe that when the road is unclean it means Zoomlion is not working. He is one who believes that once you pay your taxes you have no business caring about waste management or disposal. Indeed, he said he will not be part of any clean up exercise by the state or anyone because he pays taxes.
Isn’t that ridiculous coming from a graduate who benefited from our taxes? In fact, that is unGhanaian. What is he teaching the young ones? He repeated this at the Imani Africa forum at the British Council.
Manasseh behaves as though he is an educated illiterate because he reads but doesn’t understand and he sees but cannot interpret or translate into writing into his writing positively for nation-building. He despises dredging the Odaw River and his solution is that we should stop dredging for now and for the city to flood and kill Ghanaians after all he lives in Aburi on the hill so he will not be affected. Thankfully, government and our leaders are not as dumb as Manasseh is.
I will be back on his attitude and who he thinks himself to be that he can say anything against a president and expect us to respect him. Manasseh still has the chance to commend Jospong.
The writer Mashoud Bawah is an environmental sanitation enthusiast
Email: bmashoud@yahoo.com
